


Feline Interference

by ssrhpurgatory



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bisexual Female Character, Bisexual Male Character, F/M, Fuckbuddies To Lovers, Hilbert has a pet cat, Isabel Lovelace & Alexander Hilbert (minor), Isabel Lovelace (minor), Porn with a thin veneer of plot, cat shenanigans, fat female character, for a given definition of normal, where everyone is just a normal person
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-03
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:40:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 17,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27361387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssrhpurgatory/pseuds/ssrhpurgatory
Summary: You know that one r/relationships post that was going around about the person who started to have feelings for their fuckbuddy because their fuckbuddy was nice to their cat? Well, I blinked and suddenly had a fic long enough to need multiple chapters.
Relationships: Alexander Hilbert/Original Female Character
Kudos: 5





	1. Chapter 1

“I’m just saying, maybe you’d be less of a miserable cuss if you got laid once in a while,” Isabel said.

“Too much trouble,” Alexander complained, sinking back against his couch cushions. Thirdy let out a disgruntled little chirp and got up to turn in a half circle before resettling himself in Alexander’s lap. “I hate dating apps. People on them are so often superficial, and I am, well...” He gestured expressively at all five feet and six inches of himself, all knobbly joints and skinny limbs and not a working hair follicle to be seen, currently covered in both cat hair and the culprit who had produced it. “I am too skinny for most of the men and I am too short for most of the women, and I am not conventionally attractive enough for any of them.”

“Since you brought up women...” Isabel’s voice was contemplative in a way that sent a shiver of fear down Alexander’s spine.

“Oh, no. Whoever it is you want to set me up with, the answer is no.”

“She’s a co-worker,” Isabel said mildly. “She’s single. She’s shorter than you and probably smarter than you, too.”

“No one is smarter than me,” Alexander said, pulling a face that made it clear he was joking.

Isabel rolled her eyes and punched him lightly on the arm. “And you’re an ass. I don’t know why I put up with you.”

“Because you love me,” Alexander said primly.

This got another eye-roll from Isabel, but she did not protest. “I’m just saying that I think you would like her. And it might do you some good to spend some time with someone who isn’t your cat.”

“I spend time with you.” Even as his other college friends had drifted away, Isabel had been there, bullying him into watching trashy TV shows with her and inviting him to parties. These days, she was most of Alexander’s social life.

“We both know that I don’t count as someone.”

“And the cat does?” Alexander gave Thirdy a dubious look.

Isabel apparently decided that such a silly question was not worth answering. “I meant... Look, sometimes... sometimes you get really stressed out in social situations. But you never get stressed out when you’re hanging out with me.”

All true. Alexander nodded his acknowledgement of this point. He had never been skilled at small talk or other social niceties. He had never really understood the purpose of them, and being in a situation where he was expected to be fluent in them was never something he had enjoyed. But Isabel had never really cared; she had always accepted him as he was, inability to comprehend the rituals of modern life and all.

“Anyway,” Isabel said, sounding triumphant now, “That’s why you should let me hook you up with someone. I know what you’re like. Way better than a dating app.”

Alexander sighed. “Fine. If I go on a date with this woman—whether or not it goes well—will you stop pestering me about this?”

“Cross my heart,” Isabel said, suiting actions to words. “But I’ll also eat my hat if you don’t hit it off with her.”

“Do you even own any hats?”

“Nope! Guess I’ll have to eat one of yours instead.”

“I _like_ my hats. You are not allowed to eat any of them.”

Isabel leaned into him and mock-bit at the side of his head. “Om nom nom.”

Alexander shrugged her off of him. “So what does this woman look like, anyway?”

Isabel pulled a photo up on her phone and handed it over to Alexander. One look at it and he immediately regretted his agreement to Isabel’s terms. Rosemary Epps was attractive, a fat Black woman with a smile that shone, even from a photograph. _Way_ out of his league, in any world. But if he backed out now, he would never hear the end of it from Isabel.

He tried to back out anyway. “She will never want to go on a date with me!” he protested.

“She’s already agreed. And before you ask, I showed her a photo of you _before_ she said yes.” Isabel raised an eyebrow at Alexander’s disbelieving snort. “Believe it or not, she claims to have the same sort of problems with dating apps that you do.”

“I do _not_ believe it.”

Isabel took her phone back. “Well, she’s expecting you at that café over on Fourth in two hours, so you’d better show up.”

“This afternoon?”

Isabel raised her eyebrows. “You have something better to do with your Saturday afternoon?”

“No,” Alexander admitted grudgingly.

“Good.” She patted Alexander on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. You’ll have a _great_ time. Rosemary’s… fun.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, would you look at the time! I’m going to be late for lunch with Renée.” Isabel sprang to her feet and patted Alexander on the shoulder. “See you next week for our usual bitch session?”

“I suppose,” Alexander muttered, still extremely disgruntled.

With a grin and a wave, Isabel let herself out the door to Alexander’s apartment, and he was left alone with his cat. Alexander lifted Thirdy off his lap and cuddled him in his arms, scratching Thirdy’s chin and getting a purr out of him in response. “You do not think I am a, ah, miserable cuss, do you?”

Thirdy’s only response was to headbutt Alexander on the chin. Alexander chose to put that as a mark on the “not a miserable cuss” side of the tally.

“I suppose I had better go get ready for this date. I wonder if I have any clothing that is not covered in cat hair.”

In the end, he settled for a pair of jeans and flannel shirt, neither of which were too obviously furry. Hopefully he did not have a clump of fur clinging somewhere out of sight. He rather suspected he had been overthinking the entire thing, but it had been the better part of four years since he had last gone on a date, and he was feeling more nervous than he had expected to be feeling.

“Just go and talk to the woman, Alexander,” he told his reflection. “You do not need to make a big deal of it.”

His anxiety made him late. Rosemary was already waiting for him when he reached the café, sitting at a little two person table, staring thoughtfully down at a paper to-go cup. Alexander almost lost his nerve then, but she glanced up before he could escape out the door and waved him over.

“Alexander, right?” She got to her feet as he approached and held out her hand to him. She beamed that startlingly beautiful smile up at him as she shook his hand firmly, and Alexander had to fight to keep breathing. “Rosemary. Isabel’s told me all about you.”

“Oh, I hope not,” he responded, startled.

This got a laugh out of her. “Can I get you something?”

“Ah, no, just a moment.” Alexander retreated to the counter of the café, watching Rosemary out of the corner of his eye. Isabel had said she was shorter than him, but Rosemary was only five feet tall, if that, and managed to make Alexander feel as if he towered over her. He had expected, based on her looks, that she would have a high, girly sort of voice, but it had a low, raspy timbre to it that hit him somewhere in the hindbrain and made him want to sit up straight and pay attention to it.

And she was even more attractive in person. That photo had not captured her presence, her _charisma_. He had no business being on a date with a woman like this.

But when he returned to the table with his own to-go cup of coffee and a scone meant to make up for the lunch he had forgotten to eat, she smiled up at him as if he were not, well, him. He could not help but smile hesitantly back and sit down across from her.

“So. Isabel says you’re in micro research? Something about irradiated microbes and soap products?”

Alexander hastily swallowed the bite of scone he had just taken. “Ah, yes.”

“Sounds interesting. Want to tell me more?”

He shrugged. “It is not exactly classified, but, ah…”

Rosemary laughed. “It’s fine. I’m in pharma research myself, and some of the NDAs they make me sign…”

Alexander frowned. “You are not in security? I thought Isabel said you were her coworker.”

“She works security on my building. I like to drop by her desk and keep her supplied in protein bars and coffee, and she keeps me supplied in all the latest gossip.” Rosemary took a sip from her cup. “And I’ve gone out for drinks with her and her girlfriend a few times. That sort of thing.”

“I see.” Alexander took a cautious sip from his cup. Still too hot to drink. He sighed. “Look,” he said, deciding to be blunt in order to chase away this woman who was too attractive to possibly be interested in him. “You seem very nice, but I am only here because Isabel would not stop pestering me. She seems to think that I will become more pleasant if I get laid.”

One of Rosemary’s eyebrows shot up, amused and dangerous. “I see.”

“So you understand that there is no point to... to pretending—“

Rosemary held up a hand to cut him off. “I understand perfectly.”

Alexander relaxed, just a little, and picked another chunk of the scone off. “Good,” he said before stuffing the chunk of scone into his mouth.

“And look, I’ll be honest, all I’m really looking for myself is a fuckbuddy, so this situation is perfect for me.”

Alexander was hard-pressed not to spit his mouthful of crumbs across the table. He swallowed a little too hard and then had to cough to clear his throat. “Sorry?”

Rosemary raised her eyebrows. “You, me, meaningless sex? I’m up for it.”

Alexander stared wide-eyed at her. This was not an outcome he could have anticipated, and definitely not one that he had expected once he had seen this coworker of Isabel’s. “Ah. I...” He cleared his throat again, but all that came out was another “Ah.”

She smiled at him, her expression not quite pitying. “Look, as busy as I am, I don’t really have the time to date. It just involves too much time spent managing another person’s feelings. But I like having sex, preferably with a monogamous partner, and it’s really hard to find that outside of a relationship. And I trust Isabel’s judgement enough to believe she wouldn’t try to hook me up with someone who was a _truly_ terrible human being. So if what you want is a good old clean-out of the plumbing downstairs, might as well be honest that that’s all I’m in it for myself.”

Alexander followed along with this little speech with a vague sense of bemusement. “And so, what, we leave this café and go back to whoever’s apartment is closer and have sex, and do not think about it again until one of us gets horny?”

She beamed at him. “Sounds lovely, if the rest of your afternoon is free. My place is just down the block.”

Alexander shook his head, disbelieving. “You cannot be serious.”

She looked at him, wide-eyed. “What makes you think I’m not?”

“I…” He let out a huff of breath. “You…”

She reached her hand across the table and put it over his, stopping him from tearing his scone into even smaller bits. “It’s just sex, Alexander.”

“And, what, you do not have to be attracted to someone to have sex with them?” he asked bitterly.

“Are you saying there’s a problem on that score for you?” She was studying him intently now, a little frown puckering a line between her eyebrows, and her fingers traced a little circle on the back of his wrist.

“I would think _you_ would have a problem.”

She looked him up and down, a slow, considering look that left him blushing. “No, I think I’ll be fine.”

“Right. Well.” He looked down at her hand, still covering his, at the mound of jagged pieces of scone, at the coffee that was no doubt too hot to drink still. “I suppose… I suppose your place sounds nice.”

The little frown between her eyebrows vanished into the glory of her smile. “Excellent. You ready now, or…?”

“Let me just deal with… with this.” He gestured at the mess of crumbs in front of him. “I will meet you out front?”

“See you there.”


	2. Chapter 2

“And here we are.” Rosemary lead Alexander straight through to her bedroom when they got to her apartment. “My roommate’s out, but she gets a bit weird about unexpected guests,” she added by way of an explanation at Alexander’s dubious look. “I’d really rather not be in the middle of making out with you on the couch when she gets home.”

“And should I expect there to be a great deal of, ah, making out?”

Rosemary bit her lower lip, trying to hide her amusement as she shut and locked the door to her bedroom and ushered him over to sit on her bed. She might only be planning to have sex with this fellow because Isabel had asked her for a favor and she had been desperate anyway, but his awkwardness with this entire situation was, she had to admit, kind of adorable.“Let’s get the preliminaries out of the way before making out comes into it. You clean?”

Alexander let out a bitter laugh. “I was four years ago, and I have not had sex with another person since.”

Rosemary winced. “I see. Well. Only six months here, but my last STD panel came back clean.” She paused to see if he had anything to add. When he didn’t, she cleared her throat and continued. “Anyway. Condoms. You don’t have a latex allergy, do you?”

He shook his head and gave her a lopsided little smile that was almost as adorable as his apprehension. “And I, ah, fit standard sizes.”

Rosemary was surprised into a little laugh by the dry, self-deprecating humor that had suddenly appeared in Alexander’s voice. “Good to know. And I’m a big proponent of lube. Marvelous stuff.”

He nodded this time, but didn’t offer her any further commentary. A quiet fellow, this Alexander.

“Well. There’s my presentation. Any questions from the audience?”

Alexander quirked up one of his nonexistent eyebrows. “Is this the part where we start making out?”

Rosemary let out a crack of laughter. “Yes. Absolutely. Come here.”

She reached for him, sliding one hand up his arm, past his shoulder, until she could tug him closer with a loose grip on the back of his neck. His eyes closed involuntarily as her fingers dug in lightly, and he let out a little moan and almost collapsed towards her.

She pressed her cheek against his to whisper into his ear. “You all right?”

He nodded, and a shiver ran through him. “Apologies. It has been a long time since...” He pulled back, letting out a low huff of breath and forcing his eyes open, only to blink dazedly at her. “Isabel hugs me sometimes. But...”

Rosemary tried to keep her pity off her face. “Don’t get a lot of skin-to-skin contact, do you.”

He shook his head.

“Well, that’s why we’re here.” She slid her hand back down his arm and took his hand in hers, giving it a firm squeeze. His eyes rolled back in his head again. “I’m going to kiss you now, if that’s all right.”

He nodded, and did not try to open his eyes again. Rosemary scooted closer and approached her object with care, angling her head in order to press her mouth to his with the minimum of nose-bumping. She felt his startled exhale against her lips at her first, chaste kiss, and decided to take the invitation offered, leaving her mouth soft and slightly open for the next. His lips parted more fully and formed to hers, and she felt him tug his hand loose from hers in order to lay it hesitantly against her arm.

Rosemary broke the kiss. “Touch me anywhere you want,” she murmured, her lips brushing his. “I won’t bite unless you ask me to.”

Another shiver ran through Alexander, followed by a low moan she took for suddenly realized sexual frustration. His eyes snapped open, still dazed but intent on her own. “I think I am wearing too much clothing,” he said, his voice low and hoarse. And then he glanced down at her chest, still covered by her oversized sweater. “And I know you are.”

Rosemary nipped his lower lip before pulling back from him. So much for only biting him when he asked, but in her defense, it had been tempting. “Race you.”

She had her sweater off before he realized what she meant by that, and had followed it with her shirt by the time he started in on the buttons of the flannel shirt he was wearing. He froze, obviously staring at her chest and the marvelous job of supporting it that her bra was doing.

“Not fair,” he muttered, reaching for the next button and failing to work it. He fumbled at his waist to untuck things and pulled both button-up and undershirt overhead in a hasty fashion that almost took his glasses with them, clearly intent on gawking at her cleavage for as long as it took her to get rid of her bra but not willing to cede the race to get undressed to her.

Rosemary took pity on him. She let her gaze linger on the bulge in the front of his trousers that was definitely an erection and took her time hunting down the hook and eye of her tweed skirt. She would probably end up keeping the bra on, anyway; guys tended to like her tits a lot better when they weren’t sagging all over the place.

Alexander stood to shove his trousers off, letting them drop to the floor, awkwardly shuffling his shoes off around them. His erection tented the front of the boxers he was still wearing, and he seemed hesitant to remove them. “Ah. I am...”

“Not quite ready to be completely naked in front of a strange woman?” Rosemary suggested when he trailed off, his entire face blushing bright red. “That’s just fine.” Almost a relief; she had an excuse to keep her bra on now.

This time he reached for her, feathering his fingers across her shoulders as if he couldn’t quite believe he was allowed to touch her. There was something almost reverent in it, something that made her feel just a little bit fragile, something that made her want to shy away from him. Instead, she reached for him as well, gripping him on the back of his neck again and pulling him in for yet another kiss.

Making out, she could cope with. But reverence? That had no place in her bed.

He met her kisses with his own, his mouth hard and desperate against hers, melting into soft warmth when she flicked her tongue up against his upper lip. And that desperation didn’t go away, not as he kissed his way down into her cleavage before making surprisingly short work of her bra—there were three rows of hooks, and even _she_ had trouble with them sometimes—not as he ran his tongue from nipple to sternum along one of her stretch marks, not as he pressed her down onto the surface of her bed. He lay at her side at first, clearly wanting both hands free to explore her, and she rolled onto her side so that she could reach for him too, pulling his mouth to hers.

The kissing was surprisingly good, and it took her a little while to realize that it wasn’t anything about his technique—he was a bit awkward, actually, probably out of practice given his four year drought—but the fact that he just… tasted good. Not in a way she could put words to, but in a way she couldn’t seem to resist returning to, again and again.

His hand traced its way down the wide curve of her stomach and over her panties, and she bent her knee in order to spread her legs for him as he pressed his fingers against her. Her breath escaping her in a muffled groan against his mouth as he stroked her gently. He took this for the encouragement she had meant it as, and he slid his fingers inside her panties next.

Even if she hadn’t been able to tell how slick he found her by the lack of friction he found, the low, greedy noise he made in the back of his throat as he slid his fingers inside of her would have done it.

She broke away from their kiss to press her lips to the pulse in his throat, hot and needy. “I think I want your cock now,” she murmured against his skin.

“Right.” He sounded surprised, as if he had forgotten where this was going, and half-sat-up as he shuffled his way out of his boxers and got rid of his glasses, folding them carefully onto her bedside table next to the tissue box. Rosemary shed her panties, flinging them unceremoniously onto her floor, and went into the drawer of her bedside table, ripping a condom off the strip of them she kept in there.

“May I?”

Alexander nodded, wide-eyed and a little terrified-looking, and shivered a bit as she rolled the condom on. But when she tugged him over her and suggested he set the pace, he came eagerly, his weight—slight as it was—pressing her into the surface of her bed.

Those wide eyes snapped shut again as he thrust gently against her, once, twice, before his cock caught at her entrance and slid inside her in one smooth stroke. Rosemary bit her lower lip and tried not to whimper too abjectly as he filled her. It had only been six months, but right now the last time she’d had sex felt like an eternity ago. Every sensation felt sharp and new and _delicious_ , and she luxuriated in it.

Alexander seemed just as overcome as she was by the entire thing. She could tell he was biting the inside of his lower lip as he worked in her, and tried not to laugh when he let out a little whimper and let his head fall against her shoulder. “I may not last,” he ground out, his voice very low and harsh. “What…?”

Rosemary worked her hand down between them, finding her clit. “Just keep going as long as you can, darling,” she murmured against the side of his head, pressing a kiss to his bare scalp. “Just a little longer…”

His hips came to a twitching halt and held against her a moment before she stroked herself to her own orgasm, and if she hadn’t been so distracted she definitely would have found the desperate little noise he made in the back of his throat as he came extremely gratifying. As it was, all she had the brainpower for was to lay limp and satisfied beneath him as she tried to catch her breath.

“You are all right?” he murmured, his lips warm against her neck.

“Mm-hm.” She stroked her fingers across his scalp. “Should probably do something about that condom, though.”

“Right.” Alexander sat up and carefully withdrew from her, a firm grip in place around the base of the condom, a courtesy her last penis-bearing partner had not had the common sense to give her. Warning her he was getting close so that she could do something for herself and now this; two points in his favor.

She pointed him towards the little trash can in the corner of her room once he had removed the condom and swathed it in tissues. “And if you put your pants back on, I’ll show you where the bathroom is so you can clean up a little more before you head out.”

“Very good.” He seemed a little stiff and awkward now, but Isabel had said that he had never been much for casual dating, so Rosemary supposed this must all be very new to him. A little awkwardness was to be expected under the circumstances. And Rosemary was almost grateful for his awkwardness; it kept him quiet, which was better than having whatever stilted conversation might have ensued if he had been a little _less_ awkward.

Miranda came home while Rosemary was standing outside of the bathroom, waiting for Alexander to finish his business so that she could take her turn. “What are you doing, standing there?” she barked.

“Well…”

The toilet flushed and the sink turned on.

Miranda glared. “Don’t tell me you have someone over. I thought we talked about this.”

“I did text you a warning!”

“You know I turn my phone off when I’m at my Saturday sessions!” Miranda pulled her phone out of her purse and frowned at it as she turned it on. It buzzed with a half-dozen notifications in her hand as she continued her rant. “A day or two of notice before you bring someone over. That’s all I ask!”

“Well, he’s on his way out,” Rosemary responded. Alexander had opened up the bathroom door and was peering out cautiously, and Rosemary reached out and took him by the hand. “I’m going to see him on his way, and then we can have this conversation, okay?”

“Fine.” By Miranda’s tone of voice, Rosemary knew she’d have a hell of an argument on her hands once Alexander was gone, but she was grateful for the temporary reprieve.

“Sorry about that,” she said to him on their way down the stairs. “Her Saturday sessions _usually_ last a little longer. Thought I could smuggle you in and out before she got back.”

“It is all right.”

Rosemary felt awkward herself when they paused just outside the street door. She felt like she should kiss him on the cheek or give him a hug something, but couldn’t decide what would be the best and stood there, hands hanging uselessly at her sides, waiting for him to make the next move. And then, blissfully, she remembered what came next. “Oh! Numbers.”

One of his eyebrows quirked up, a brief sign of amusement. “Ah, yes,” he said drily. “So that we may text one another when we get horny again.”

“What a tease.” But a welcome sign that he wasn’t feeling quite so awkward about this as she had worried he was. Which was good, because she was pretty sure that she wanted to do something like this with him again. She pulled her phone out of her skirt pocket and unlocked it. “Program your number in and I’ll text you so you have mine.”

Once Rosemary had pocketed her phone once more, she shoved her hands into her pockets and beamed up at Alexander. “Well, I’d better go face the music. Hope you have a good evening!” And then, before he could respond, she whirled her way back through the street door of her apartment building, on her way to have a thundering row with her roommate and determined to think of anything else but the man she’d just fucked.


	3. Chapter 3

Alexander went into the start of his work week with an unexpected spring to his step. He still was not certain what to think of the whole casual sex thing or of the woman he had done it with, but he had enjoyed himself well enough while it was happening and had tried not to think too much about his doubts since then.

But even if he mostly avoided his doubts, he couldn’t quite keep himself from thinking about Rosemary, as much as he tried. The sex had been… well, it had been sex, but sex had not exactly been a frequent part of his life and she was only the second woman he had ever slept with, turning their encounter into a novelty that he kept replaying in his mind. Which would have been fine, except for the fact that he sometimes found himself doing it during quite inappropriate moments, like in the middle of a work meeting. Fortunately his erection had been hidden by the conference table and had disappeared by the end of the meeting, but the almost-mortification of that experience lingered with him.

He probably just needed to work it out of his system. He wondered how long it would be before it would be appropriate to contact Rosemary again and ask her for a repeat performance. By Wednesday afternoon, he had almost resolved to ask Isabel whether there were any unspoken social rules about frequency of contact in a fuckbuddy situation.

Fortunately, before he reached the point of actually doing it, she called him.

“Hey!” Rosemary sounded as if she hadn’t expected him to answer, but pleased that he had. “You busy tonight?”

“Let me check my busy schedule,” Alexander said drily. “Ah, look, it seems I can pencil you in around seven.”

“Oh, lovely.” She sounded as if she were smiling. “Is there any chance we could meet at your place this time? Miranda threw a fit about me bringing strange men into the apartment after you left, and I’d rather not deal with another roommate tantrum if I can avoid it.”

“Ah. Well...” Alexander considered the general cleanliness of his apartment. Not too embarrassing, he supposed. And he had washed his sheets a week ago. “You are not allergic to cats?”

“Not in the slightest. I’m going to guess that I should bring my own supplies?”

He had been wondering if he would have time after work to both eat dinner _and_ go buy condoms. “That would be appreciated.”

“Great. Text me the address. See you at seven.” Rosemary ended the call, and Alexander lowered the phone from his ear feeling rather as if he had been hit by a truck. He would never get used to how casual this woman was about... well, about everything. But after this past weekend, he had to admit that Isabel had been right; he felt a lot more relaxed now that he had gotten laid.

He resented it when Isabel was right about that sort of thing.

That did not stop him from texting Rosemary his address.

Rosemary, when she arrived at Alexander’s apartment that night, waited only long enough for him to shut the door behind her before she crowded up against him, threw her arms around his neck, and pulled him down into an open-mouthed kiss that sent all of the air rushing out of his lungs. He whimpered and sank into the kiss, luxuriating in the way she took control. He might not know how to ask for what he wanted, but she made it easy to not know, easy to be subsumed by her desire instead.

There was a demanding meow, and Alexander felt Thirdy wind around his ankle and then worm his way between the two of them. Rosemary broke the kiss with a laugh and glanced down at where Thirdy was still weaving his way around their ankles, rubbing his cheek along the edge of her boot. She took a step back and bent over to offer Thirdy her fist for inspection. “Hello to you, too.” She glanced up at Alexander. “Who’s this handsome fellow?”

Alexander watched in amazement as his usually shy-of-strangers cat made an absolute fool of himself, rubbing up against Rosemary’s hand as if she were made of catnip. He understood the impulse. “Thirdy. Specimen Thirty-Four,” he clarified, when she gave him a confused look. “But I just call him Thirdy most of time.”

“I refuse to ask how he got that name.” But Rosemary had a delighted smile on her face as she scratched behind Thirdy’s ears. “Yes, I know,” she said to the cat. “Alexander must not pay any attention to you at all, huh?”

“Oh, none whatsoever.” Alexander’s heart thumped uncomfortably in his chest. Was he jealous of his _cat_?

Thirdy, the little traitor, had rolled over, showing his belly to Rosemary. And... yes, yes he was letting her pet it.

After a few minutes more of this ridiculous show of affection, Thirdy got bored and wandered off. Alexander shook his head. “He, ah, does not normally warm up to new people so quickly.”

Rosemary stood up straight and turned her attention back to Alexander. “He must know who to thank for putting you in a better mood,” she murmured, stepping in close to him again and tilting her head back in order to press a kiss to Alexander’s neck.

“ _Am_ I in better mood?” He murmured his question against her short crop of curls.

“Well, you certainly seemed more cheerful when I got you on the phone this afternoon. At least compared to when we first met.”

And her mouth on his neck was driving him crazy. “Bedroom?” he rasped desperately. He hoped Thirdy had not holed up in there.

“Bathroom first? I’d like to wash my hands.”

He showed her where the bathroom was and followed her example. And then into his bedroom, the door shut to prevent cat incursions. Rosemary took a minute to pull a little bottle of lube and several condoms out of her bag and set it all on his bedside table, then dumped her bag next to it and followed it quickly with every scrap of clothing she was wearing. Alexander followed her example as quickly as possible, but was still on his belt when she grabbed his face in her hands and started kissing him again.

His brain shut off entirely. He was distantly aware of Rosemary finishing the job he had started and getting rid of his pants and underwear, aware enough to kick them off when she shoved him down on his bed, but none of that was as important as her warm skin beneath his fingertips, as the weight of her breast in his hand, as the small noise she made in the back of her throat when he teased the tip of her nipple with his thumb.

She seemed impatient today; the lube came into play almost immediately after she rolled a condom onto him, and she let out a pained little whimper when she sank down on him. “Dammit.”

“Something wrong?” he gasped, still overwhelmed by the sudden way she had taken him inside her, by the hot clench of her cunt around his cock.

She bit her lower lip and then smiled guiltily at him. “I was feeling horny enough this afternoon that I thought I could sidestep the matter of foreplay,” she muttered. “Damn body!”

“What do you like?” Alexander had taken her at her word that he could touch her anywhere he wanted during their previous encounter and had gotten only a vague sense of what she enjoyed as a result, at least beyond kissing. But this time he wanted to make sure that whatever he did, it was for her gratification as well as his.

“Here. Just…” Rosemary sat up, her hips pinning his to the surface of the bed, his cock sinking deeper into her. She set her hands over his, where he had them clenched tight around her thighs, and stroked light fingertips across the backs of them. “Could you touch me?”

“Anywhere in particular?”

She bit her lower lip again, her teeth digging hard into its plush curve. “Same as last time, anywhere you want. I just need… contact. Assuming you like touching me?” The last was said with a note of anxiety, and Alexander rushed to reassure her.

“I _want_ to touch you,” he murmured. He released the tight grip he had on her thighs and ran his fingertips down them, circling her kneecaps in a way that made her giggle and squirm a little—she was probably ticklish—and then heading back up, his fingers spread wide. Their upper expanses were networked with cellulite and the thin little divots of stretch marks, all of it fascinating to the touch. He found himself lingering there for a moment, dipping his fingertips into a dimple on the side of one thigh, tracing the fingertips of his other hand down a stretch mark and into the dark tangle of her pubic hair.

He did not linger for long. Her hips next, with dimples and divots of their own; the curve of her ass, stroked across its entire expanse and cupped firmly for a moment; the overlapping flesh of her stomach and the love handles at her waist; the heavy weight of her breasts, far too large for a single hand, the nipples clearly sensitive as they hardened under his careful exploration. She whimpered and shifted against him as he touched her, clearly hotter and slicker than she had been when he had started. When Alexander cupped her face in both hands and tugged the weight of her body back over his chest, she came eagerly, meeting his lips with an open-mouthed kiss. Her tongue darted out and slid against his, a sweet friction that left him whimpering himself and unaware of the world once more.

Whatever it had done for her, him touching her like that, it seemed to have done the trick. After a few more minutes of desperate kissing, she broke away, taking deep, panting breaths as she rode him frantically. He clung to her and tried to keep pace, worrying that his own orgasm would come too soon for her again, knowing it would when she lifted one of her hands off the surface of the bed in order to tease his nipple with her thumb. He bit down hard on the inside of his cheek, trying to hang on for as long as possible, and worked his hand down between them.

Rosemary’s hips shook as he found what he was looking for, the little nubbin of her clit hard beneath his fingertips and slick with lube and her own arousal. He did not have much space to work, but Rosemary didn’t seem to need it; her own movements rubbed her clit against him, and she adjusted in a way that made him think she was in search of a particular angle.

She found it. She ground down against him in little circles, her breath panting and desperate against his neck as she did. He felt the moment she came undone, her entire body shuddering and then stilling, a strangled scream escaping her throat.

His own orgasm hit him a moment later, and the world around him blanked out entirely into a fuzzy map of sensation that took him a good minute or two to make sense of. The heavy weight of Rosemary’s body as she let out a satisfied-sounding groan and sank against his chest, the bump beneath his shoulder blades where the blankets of his bed had bunched up and were digging in to him, the reflected glow of one of the street lights that overhung the apartment parking lot; a pile of small impressions that coalesced into a satisfying whole as he tried to catch his breath.

It had gotten dark. Alexander fumbled for the lamp on his bedside table with his free hand and turned it on.

“Am I too heavy for you?” Rosemary mumbled from his shoulder.

“No.” Her weight was comforting against him. “But you should probably get off of me before the condom, ah…”

“Oh, right.” She pushed herself upright and waited for him to get a grip on the condom before pulling herself off of him. Alexander rolled off the edge of his bed and went to the bathroom to take care of the condom and clean himself up a bit, and returned to find Rosemary still flopped bonelessly on his bed, his top blanket half pulled over her naked body and Thirdy pestering her for attention.

His heart thumped painfully in his chest again, as it had when Rosemary had first interacted with his cat. He ignored it and tried to be casual as he sat down on the edge of his bed, reaching out to scratch Thirdy between his ears. As Rosemary was currently scratching Thirdy’s chin, the cat was currently in a state of bliss, his eyes scrunched shut and his purr thunderous. “You will have her thinking I neglect you horribly,” he scolded his cat.

Rosemary smiled up at him, little creases forming at the corners of her eyes. “I’m sure you take excellent care of him.” She freed her hand from the cat’s service and pushed herself upright, glancing over at the alarm clock on his bedside table. “I’m working tomorrow, so I should probably get out of here before it gets too late. But this was really, ah…” Her gaze darted up and down his body, clearly appreciative, though he had no idea why. “Really nice,” she finished, somewhat of a letdown after that look. “I’m going to use your bathroom, that okay?”

“Of course.”

She kept the small talk to a minimum as they got dressed again, and her attitude towards him by the time he went to let her out of his apartment seemed friendly but distant. Thirdy followed them to the front door, letting out little mews and walking his front paws up Rosemary’s leg as he begged for further scraps of her attention, and Alexander found himself wishing he could do the same thing as Rosemary bent over and gave Thirdy a few more affectionate strokes. “I can’t take you with me, silly. My roommate’s allergic,” she said finally.

Alexander took that as his cue to scoop the cat up and out of the way so that Rosemary could escape, which she did with a final pat to Thirdy’s head and an airy “See you soon,” that Alexander thought had _probably_ been directed to him and not his cat.

After she was gone, Thirdy clung to Alexander’s lap and chest for the rest of the evening, purring up a storm. Alexander provided his cat with the affection the beast so clearly craved, but found that he felt a bit sullen about it. “Do not purr at me like that, you traitor,” he muttered.

Thirdy only planted his paws on Alexander’s shoulder and rubbed his cheek along Alexander’s jaw, blissfully unaware of how his own actions had affected his owner’s ability to maintain a cool head around the woman he was only fucking.


	4. Chapter 4

Rosemary was buzzing with well-being and good cheer the next day. So much so that Isabel noticed it when Rosemary dropped by her desk for an afternoon chat.

“What’s the special occasion?” Isabel asked, raising her eyebrow as she looked down at Rosemary’s offerings.

All right, maybe the chocolate chip muffin had been overkill. “I… had a very good evening last night.” Rosemary said importantly.

“Really, now.” Now both of Isabel’s eyebrows had shot up in the direction of her hair line. “Anything to do with that little introduction I set up on Saturday?”

“As a matter of fact, yes.”

Isabel laughed. “God. I hoped it would stop him from acting so miserable all the time; I didn’t realize it would make _you_ even more obnoxiously cheerful than you already were.”

“I’m happier when I’m getting laid on a regular basis. So sue me.”

Isabel held up a stilling hand. “No details, please. Knowing Alexander has a sex life now—having _set him up_ with a sex life—is already too much information.”

“As if I’d tell you the details.” Rosemary stuck her tongue out at the other woman. “Those are going in my personal spank bank, and no one but me gets the keys to that.”

Isabel groaned and dropped her head to the surface of her desk. “Okay, still too much detail. Please. Go away.” She made a shooing gesture with her hand. “Take your knowledge of how my best friend is in bed away with you. Far, far away.”

“Fine, but I’m taking my muffin with me.”

“Oh no you don’t.” Isabel snatched the muffin up and stuffed it under her desk while Rosemary was still reaching for it. “My muffin.”

“Dork.”

“Only when it comes to muffins.” Isabel scooted the fancy coffee drink that had arrived with the muffin further away from Rosemary, apparently seeing the need for cautionary measures.

“Anyway, I just thought I’d let you know that it’s going well, and that I’m having fun. And I think your friend is too. And so is his cat, apparently, the little attention hog.”

Isabel’s eyebrows climbed her forehead again. “Wait, you _met_ Thirdy? The little bastard spend the first five months Alexander had him hiding behind the couch when I came over. I wouldn’t have believed he had a cat if it hadn’t been for the fur everywhere.”

“Really? Are you sure we’re talking about the same cat? Orange tabby, about this big, has a face that looks like he punches people with it?”

“Yeah, that’s Thirdy.”

“Huh. Well, he was all over me. Maybe he’s gotten more relaxed over the years.”

“He still doesn’t let me pet him!” Isabel sounded insulted by this feline snub.

“Maybe I just have the magic touch.” Though she couldn’t recall the last time she’d met a cat, or how said cat had reacted to her, so she couldn’t really claim that statement had any veracity.

“Maybe.” But Isabel still sounded sulky.

That conversation was still stuck in Rosemary’s mind on Friday afternoon. That conversation, and the fact that she had apparently been more in need of a few good fucks than she’d expected. She’d masturbated Thursday night, imagining the delicate, reverent way Alexander had explored her body the evening before, and although she’d managed to get herself off, it didn’t do anything about the fact that horny as hell seemed to be her new base state now that her drought had been ended.

Alexander answered her text about whether he had plans for his Friday evening with **_When do I ever?_** , a sentence her brain produced in that drily amused voice he had used when teasing her.

 ** _Want some?_ **she texted back.

**_Please._ **

**_I’ll be over at 7 again, if that’s okay._ **

**_Yes._** There was a moment where three dots flashed on her screen, a sign he was typing something further. **_I want you._**

The flush of heat that simple phrase sent through her was completely unexpected. So much about this man was; Isabel had described her friend as both a grump and a bit of an asshole, but a friend who would have your back when you needed it. But nothing Isabel had ever said about the man had captured that wry twist the corner of his mouth made when he smiled, or the way the cold blue of his eyes sparkled when he was amused or startled by something, or… well, Rosemary supposed Isabel wouldn’t have any reason to know about the fragile vulnerability he had shown after orgasming, but it had been both unexpected and unexpectedly affecting.

Rosemary liked him, which was unexpected too. She really only had Isabel’s stories about him and their two brief meetings to go on; she didn’t know anything much about him beyond the fact that he hadn’t had sex for the past four years and how he looked while fucking her.

Maybe she could pin the fact that she liked him on the cat. In Rosemary’s experience, people who absolutely hated cats tended to be control freaks, in the bad way. Maybe the fact that he had a cat who was obviously the one in charge of his household was a sign that he wasn’t controlling, at least not in that way.

And if so, thank goodness. She’d be fine if he let her come and go like a cat seeking out affection only when it wanted some. But if he started to become too attached… Well, she wasn’t in this for attachment, that was all. Too many relationships that had ended poorly in her past for her to be interested in a new one.

That night, Alexander seemed perfectly happy to let her pull him down into a kiss when she got to his apartment in lieu of a more formal greeting. Within a minute or two, he’d helped her shed her coat and had pulled her down on his couch, tugging her down to straddle his lap and making no complaints when she rested most of her weight on his thighs. From the hard bar of his erection pressing at her through their respective layers of clothing, she rather suspected he had the opposite of complaints.

The making out continued to be distressingly good. Rosemary had never really had a strong opinion about kissing one way or the other and would have probably rated herself as indifferent to it with past partners, but here it felt vital.

There was a loud meow and the feeling of two small paws, planted firmly on her thigh. Thirdy headbutted his way up under her arm and clambered determinedly into the small empty space between them. Rosemary laughed and leaned back a little, resting more of her weight on Alexander’s knees, and he compensated for her change in position automatically, moving his hands to her waist and anchoring her in place.

“Hey, Thirdy,” she said, peering down over her own bosom at the cat, who was almost obscured by it. “What are you doing there, buddy? Upset I didn’t say hello to you too?”

Thirdy headbutted the arm opposite from the one he had squeezed under to get into his current position. Rosemary laughed again and released Alexander’s shoulder, maneuvering her arm awkwardly in order to pet the demanding feline. “What a pest.”

Alexander let out a long-suffering sigh and let his head drop against the back of the couch, but an amused little smile he was obviously trying to suppress kept quirking the corner of his mouth up. Thirdy was showing every sign of planning to settle down for a nap between them, and as cute as the cat was, that would be _really_ inconvenient.

“Sorry, buddy,” she said, managing to maneuver herself into a position where she could scoop the cat out from between her and Alexander. “I’ll sit down and pet you as much as you want once I’ve got what I came here for, but right now…” She met Alexander’s eye. “Bedroom?”

He nodded.

A quick detour to the bathroom to wash the cat slobber off her hands where Thirdy had rubbed his cheek against her—and goodness, he was drooly for a cat, she would have to ask Alexander if that was normal—and they were locked away in Alexander’s bedroom, free of feline interference. Alexander didn’t get undressed right away; instead, he scooted up against the headboard of his bed and patted his lap. When she gave him a quizzical look, he shrugged and said “Seemed as if you wanted to keep, ah, making out. Wanted to give you opportunity to continue, if you would like to.”

She absolutely would. “These trousers are ridiculously uncomfortable. Mind if I get rid of them first?”

“Go right ahead.”

As she took the trousers off, his eyes skimmed their way down her legs in a way that was ridiculously flattering, especially considering she knew what they looked like. Cellulite, stretch marks, and it wasn’t like they were long or graceful at all. The phrase thunder thighs had been invented to talk about legs like hers. The best she could say for herself was she had nice calves, and that was about it.

But he didn’t seem to mind the bad, and that look made her wonder if her legs had more appeal to them than she was giving them credit for.

She straddled his lap again and almost wanted to whimper as she settled down against him. He had adjusted his erection so that it sat straight upright inside his trousers, and it felt amazing pressing between her legs, right up against her clit, the soft cotton of her panties feeling a lot rougher with that amount of pressure. As they started making out again, she found herself riding him unconsciously, seeking out subtle changes in pressure and angle that were riling her up even more than she’d already been riled.

All the while Alexander was kissing her anywhere he could reach her: on her mouth, on her neck, and, as he unbuttoned her work blouse one button at a time, destinations further south. She cataloged the sensations as they happened. An unerring line of kisses along her collarbone, despite the fact that it didn’t really stick out; his tongue hot along one of the stretch marks on her shoulder; his hand tracing over the lace of her bra until he found her nipple. All she really had the presence of mind to do was ride against him and whimper when he put his mouth to that nipple and started licking and nibbling it through her bra, the netting beneath the lace scraping roughly against her skin.

Her orgasm shouldn’t have come as a surprise, but it did, startling a scream out of her already-taxed lungs.

Alexander lifted his head from her chest and smiled, a little smugly. And then he scrabbled a condom off his bedside table and unzipped his trousers, clearly not planning to take them off and clearly more frantic for his own release than that smug smile had indicated. Rosemary inched back on his thighs far enough to give him the space to pull his hard cock out of the front of his boxers and sheath it in a condom, but that was all she had patience left for. She shoved his hand aside the instant the condom was ready,rose up on her knees, pulled her panties to one side, and took him inside her in one smooth, downward motion.

Alexander gasped. His head fell back against the headboard, that smugness entirely gone. All that was left was desire, and his hands hard on her hips as he urged her on.

Even so, he didn’t come as fast this time as he had the last two. Rosemary kissed him senseless and, when that didn’t work, she untucked his shirt and got her hands up under it, stroking light fingers over his ribs and finding his nipples with her thumbs.

That did it for him. His hands slid around to her lower back and he pulled her hard down against him, his head falling against her chest, his face tucked tight against her neck. He hadn’t removed his glasses this time and she had no doubt that they were horribly smudged, but if he minded he didn’t seem to care enough to move, at least not right away. Rosemary decided she could let herself show a little bit of tenderness without it being some sign of an unwelcome attachment and wrapped her arms around him, stroking soft fingers down his spine as his breathing slowly evened out again.

“You okay down there?” she asked, lips pressed against the side of his scalp.

“Mrgmph,” he said, clearly still beyond coherence.

“I’m going to go out on a limb and say that’s a good thing.”

“Probably,” he mumbled against her neck. “Feels better than I remembered.”

“Mm.”

A moment later and he recovered enough to help her with the dismount, getting up and going to the bathroom to get rid of the condom and leaving his bedroom door cracked open. A moment later, Thirdy’s fist of a head punched its way through that gap, sending the door swinging open, and he let out a noise halfway between a meow and a chirp at the sight of Rosemary.

And, well, she didn’t want to get _too_ much cat hair on her work clothes, so instead of doing the probably-more-sensible thing and putting on her trousers before inviting the cat’s affection, she did what she had last time and pulled the top blanket of Alexander’s bedding over her. The cat joined her on the bed, clambering up onto her lap and headbutting against her hand each time she offered it to him, purring up a storm all the while.

Alexander appeared at the door to his bedroom and just stood there for a moment, that wry little smile of his twisting the corner of his mouth as he shook his head, obviously disapproving of his cat’s antics. “Thirdy, leave the woman be,” he scolded in the gentle tone used by pet owners who knew their animals probably wouldn’t listen.

“He’s fine,” Rosemary said with a smile. One way or the other, she had never really had a pet of her own; her parents had found the addition of a daughter to their lives stressful enough that adding an animal was not to be countenanced, and she’d either lived with people who were allergic or people who took their pets with them when they moved. Thirdy’s simple animal affection was a balm. “He’s sweet.”

“Mm.” Alexander did not seem overly impressed by this claim, but he came and joined Rosemary and Thirdy on the bed. “Bathroom is yours when you are ready for it. I will distract this creature.”

“Thanks.” She slipped off the bed and didn’t bother picking up her work pants yet. They really were horribly uncomfortable, and if her walking around his apartment in her underwear didn’t bother Alexander, she wasn’t going to make a fuss about it either.

A quick glance over her shoulder _did_ reveal that his eyes seemed to be riveted to her ass, which was, she had to admit, incredibly gratifying.

It took her until she was done with her business and washing her hands to admit to herself that she didn’t want to leave.


	5. Chapter 5

“Hey, so…”

Alexander looked up from stroking his hand down Thirdy’s stomach to find Rosemary standing in the doorway to his bedroom, an anxious look on her face. “Is something wrong?”

She shook her head, frowned as if that had felt wrong, and then shrugged. “I just… look, this isn’t about me changing my mind about dating you,” she said, lifting her chin in a stubborn little jerk. “But I’ve been feeling like… okay, so, six months is the longest I’ve gone without a partner in more than a _decade_ , and… oh, this is going horribly.” She came to a grumbling halt, looking exasperated, most likely with her own incoherence. “Look, do you think you’d be up for another round tonight?”

He was up for another round now. Oh, it would take him time to recover—he probably wouldn’t be able to get another erection for at least another half of an hour—but he had not gotten Rosemary completely naked tonight and had started to regret it as he watched her leave his room still trouser-less, her work blouse still half-unbuttoned but not nearly long enough to cover much more than the waistband of her underpants.

But it would not do to seem too eager around this woman. After all, she had just reminded him in a rather pointed fashion that this was not a relationship that had anything to do with getting to know one another better. All they were here to do was get off. “I could possibly manage it,” he said cautiously.

She bit her lower lip, telegraphing that same anxiety he had seen on her face when she had entered the room. “Then… could I spend the night? Only—“ and she kept going before he could answer her question, her nerves apparently translating into chattiness. “I’m just feeling like I was a little bit pent up, and maybe if we spend the night fucking this out of my system, I’ll stop fantasizing about someone bending me over my lab desk and railing me senseless at work.”

Now he was imagining bending her over the desk in _his_ lab and railing her senseless, an image he hoped he would _not_ take in to work with him next week. But it was good to know that she was feeling some small part of this same frantic desperation that he was. “As long as you do not mind sharing bed with me. And cat,” he added as an afterthought. “Thirdy sits outside bedroom door and yells all night if I lock him out.”

“What a little brat,” she said. But all signs of anxiety were gone. “I can’t imagine I’d mind any of that,” she added softly, a little smile quirking the corners of her mouth up and warming her voice.

“Then come here.” He patted the bed at his side, and, once she was sitting, he scooped Thirdy up, dropped a kiss on her cheek, and made for the door. “Will be right back,” he said over his shoulder, shutting the door behind him so there would be no further cat incursions while he was gone.

He put Thirdy down on his bed in the living room, but the cat refused to stay there, following Alexander into the bathroom and twining around his ankles as he washed his hands. It took some doing, but he managed to get back into the bedroom without bringing the cat with him. Thank goodness he was still fully dressed; he suspected he would have gained a few claw marks in his calves without trousers there to blunt Thirdy’s overenthusiastic affections.

Rosemary had gotten rid of her blouse and was lounging on his bed in her underwear, that little smile still playing at the corners of her mouth, bursting into a bright grin that made his heart stutter in his chest when he took a moment to look her over.

“What?” he asked.

“You just… keep looking at me like I’m the hottest thing you’ve ever seen,” she said, her cheeks darkening a bit as she spoke, her teeth digging in to her lower lip for a moment. “It’s awfully flattering.”

Well, she was, but he didn’t dare admit that out loud to her. “You should take bra off,” he muttered gruffly as he approached the bed. “It leaves marks. It must be uncomfortable.”

That got him another very strange look.

“What is it this time?”

“I think you’re the first guy I’ve ever been with who’s said something like that to me, is all.” She sat up and reached behind her as she spoke, working the hooks of her bra, and then shrugged out of it. “Women tend to know what they’re like. Guys usually just care that the bra makes them look fabulous.”

She wasn’t wrong there. But… “Easier to access without bra,” he said, shrugging a little. “And they look nice this way too.”

Rosemary laughed. “Like hell. I’ve had saggy tits since I was twelve.”

“You should take underwear off.”

“And are you just going to watch from over there?” she teased.

“If it does something for you, I suppose I could, but, well… it may be a little while until things are in working order once more for me. I thought I would see how many times I could get you to cum before then.” The words felt bold as Alexander said them, for all that they were the truth of what he wanted to do to her. But he was not used to dirty talk, so they felt awkward, too.

Rosemary did not seem to notice his awkwardness. She shivered instead, sitting there with her thumbs hooked through the waistband of her underwear, the light smile dropping off her face and being replaced with heat. “And how do you plan to do that?”

“Any objections to oral sex?”

That got another shiver from her. “None whatsoever. I’ve got a dental dam—“

“Only if you want it. I do not mind, ah… tasting you.”

“Oh. No, I think I’m just fine without a dental dam, if you are.” Her cheeks flushed dark and she looked away from him as if embarrassed to meet his eye. He felt a little proud of himself for being able to fluster her.

He crossed to the bed and set his hands over hers, where she had not made any further movements towards taking her underwear off. “Then you should get rid of these, yes?”

“Right! Yes.” Rosemary shooed him away with one hand and he went, giving her space to wiggle out of her underwear. “Where do you want me?”

“Ah. Hm.” Yet another thing he did not have much experience with. “On edge of bed?”

“Sure.” She sat down on the very edge, legs dangling. “This okay?”

“I think so.” Alexander knelt at her feet, pushing her legs further apart with his shoulders, and she leaned back, giving him a better view.

He would not call it beautiful, the sight before him. Beautiful was not the right word. But the inner lips of Rosemary’s cunt glistened slightly, hinting at the wetness beyond, and her clit was peeking out of its hood, and that obvious arousal was surprisingly gratifying to behold. She had gone into this willingly and seemed to have enjoyed what they had done so far, but this visual proof of her enjoyment enhanced his own.

He took his glasses off and set them on his bedside table, and then leaned in close and nuzzled at the coarse, dark curls that covered her outer lips. For some reason this made her shiver the way she had when he had boldly proclaimed his intention to make her cum as many times as possible. “Any preferences?”

“Um.” She exhaled softly. “I’ll tell you if you do something that doesn’t work for me.”

“Very well.” Alexander was cautious at first, approaching his object with care, with soft little strokes of his tongue against that intimate flesh. She was salty and musky, and compelling in a way that reminded him of how her kisses made him want to devour her.

Rosemary let out a little gasp and then chuckled. “I’m not made of glass, darling,” she said, stroking fingers across his scalp. “You can be a little rougher with me.”

“Right,” he muttered. And he should have known that. He had done research for a reason, had he not? He had hated his own helplessness the last evening they had spent together, had resented his lack of knowledge when it came to what would make her feel good. He might not have minded it if she had been more forthcoming with what she liked other than telling him to touch her, but she had not been, and while he could guess at “apply pressure to clit, get orgasm,” that did _not_ really give him much in the way of details.

Well, now he had details aplenty in his mind. It was time to experiment and see which she liked.

He pursed his lips experimentally around the hard little nubbin of of her clit and sucked.

Rosemary’s reaction was instantaneous. All of her breath left her lungs in one gasp as she fell bonelessly onto the surface of his bed, her hips moving in an involuntary, jerky fashion that he fought to hold on through. He grabbed a thigh in each hand and held her steady, keeping at it until her thighs squeezed tight against his cheeks, until she made a noise in the back of her throat that was completely undignified and completely undone, until she relaxed utterly, her legs trembling as if she had just exerted herself beyond her endurance.

He lifted his head from her cunt and set his chin, wet with her, on the curve of her stomach. “You are all right?”

“Jesus fuck, where did you learn how to do that?” Rosemary gasped, her legs still trembling against his shoulders.

“Was worried that theoretical basis was too small to provide good results, so I found an old Reddit AMA for lesbians. Someone asked how to give good head. Figured they would know.”

“Thank you, lesbians of Reddit,” Rosemary said fervently. “ _Jesus_ ,” she added again after taking a shaky breath, as if to punctuate what she had just said. “Okay. That was marvelous and I think _I_ might need a half hour recovery period for myself.”

“Mm.” His cock had almost risen to the occasion once more, but he could wait. He stood and took Rosemary by the legs, rotating her so that her entire body was on the bed, more or less, an effort that she laughed breathlessly at and attempted to help with before flopping bonelessly once more. Alexander wiped his chin off with a tissue before clambering awkwardly over her and onto the bed. He laid down at her side, folding his hands on his chest so that he would not be tempted to touch her. “I can wait. It will be worth it.”

She laughed again, a soft little chuckle, the corners of her eyes creasing into a smile as she did. “I don’t know that I can live up to that.”

“You can.”

“Mm.” The little hum was neither agreement nor denial. She turned her gaze away from the ceiling and seemed to focus on him properly for the first time since he had joined her on the bed. “You’re wearing _far_ too much clothing, you know.”

There was a good deal of heat to that statement, and it left Alexander feeling cheeky. “Want to undress me?”

Before she could answer, there was a loud meow from the door, and the doorknob rattled. Thirdy. The cat must have decided it was bedtime and was clearly wondering why he was locked out of the bedroom.

“Will he go away if we pretend we’re not here?” Rosemary whispered.

“Afraid not. He is creature of habit. He thinks it is bedtime,” Alexander said wryly. He sat up. “I will go see if I can bribe him with catnip in exchange for a later bedtime.”

“All right. If we’re taking a break, I should probably see if my legs can support me well enough yet to wobble my way to the bathroom again.” Rosemary heaved herself onto her side and half-slid off the bed, keeping a grip on the edge as she tested whether her legs would hold her weight. After a moment, she seemed to decide that they would do, and made her way out of the bedroom. Alexander followed in her wake, desperately thirsty all of a sudden.

“Water?” he asked as they parted way at the bathroom door.

“Oh, please!”

By the time he had sated his own thirst and had filled a water bottle for Rosemary—Thirdy liked to drink out of unattended cups, and Alexander didn’t want to risk Rosemary ending up with a cup of cat water by accident—Rosemary had finished her business in the bathroom. She took the water bottle gratefully and drained half of it in one gulp.

“Thanks. I’m assuming this is so I can keep it on the bedside table without worrying about that fellow knocking it over in the night?” She nodded at Thirdy, who was currently rolling in the dusting of catnip that Alexander had sprinkled on the kitchen floor.

“Or from drinking out of it.”

“Ugh, yeah. So much drool!”

Alexander laughed. “He cannot help it. He is missing a few teeth.”

“Glad to know there’s a legit reason, at least. I was worried something was wrong with him.” She smiled at Alexander. “Now that the cat’s distracted, ready for round three?”

“In a moment. Want to see if I can tire this creature out first.” He pulled Thirdy’s fishing rod toy off the top of the shelves he used as a pantry—and as storage for toys that Thirdy should not have too much unsupervised access to—and waved it over his cat.

Thirdy flailed his paws frantically after the feathered lure, a welcome distraction from the naked woman leaning against his kitchen counter, though not for long; Rosemary laughed at the cat’s antics and Alexander could not help but look her way. He still could not quite believe that she was here, that she was interested—even just in sex!—that he was allowed to touch and kiss and taste her. A heady feeling, that, even if he did not know enough about her to know whether he actually _liked_ her.

“What?” Her eyebrow quirked up dangerously.

“You are very comfortable in your skin,” he said for lack of anything more interesting.

“Ah. Um. Not… not usually.” She was awkward suddenly, eyes fixed determinedly on the cat, her cheeks flushing dark. “I just… I didn’t want to get back into my work clothes, as uncomfortable as they are, and if I’d known I was going to be staying, I might have packed some oversized t-shirt to wear, but…”

“Hold on.” Alexander handed her the cat fishing rod.

“Don’t tell me _you_ have some suitably oversized t-shirt.” But she took the rod and flicked it around for Thirdy’s amusement.

Alexander went into his bedroom and pulled out one of the plastic tubs underneath. Where… ah. There. He tugged the t-shirt out and brought it back to the kitchen for Rosemary. “Here you are.”

Her eyebrows rose in obvious shock. “Color me astonished,” she said, handing back the rod and taking the shirt in exchange.

“It may be a bit musty. Has been sitting in box under bed.”

“It’ll do.” She pulled it on and leaned back against his counter, more relaxed than he would have been in just a t-shirt and nothing else. “Who did this belong to? An old boyfriend?”

“Ah… Not exactly.” He and Mace had never dated, though he had occasionally suspected the man might be flirting with him back when they had both been single. Alexander had ended up with the t-shirt after an incident where his own shirt had been horribly spattered by tomato sauce, and Mace had laughed and told him to keep it when he had tried to give it back.

“It’s fine if it is,” Rosemary said, smoothing the front of the shirt down, inadvertently drawing attention to her chest, to the curve of her stomach, to that glorious body now barely hidden beneath a hem that only just covered the top inch of her thighs.

Alexander’s forgotten erection returned with a vengeance.

“I’ve got a few trophies myself,” Rosemary added, clearly continuing on her previous train of thought. Alexander was no longer paying any attention at all to what she was saying. He had never thought himself to be the sort to be turned on by a woman wearing nothing but a ratty old t-shirt, but here he was.

With a low, desperate growl, he threw the cat fishing rod aside and himself to the floor at Rosemary’s feet.

It took hardly any coaxing at all to convince her to put one of her legs up over his shoulder so that he had the space to go down on her again right there against his kitchen counter.

It took even less coaxing to get her back into his bed, where round four took place with a level of enthusiasm that Alexander’s downstairs neighbors probably resented.

He could not bring himself to care.


	6. Chapter 6

Rosemary didn’t know what it had been about that shirt that had set Alexander off that way. And while she wondered—had he been imagining its original owner in her place while he’d done down on her? Did he just get off on her wandering around without panties on under it?—she couldn’t bring herself to care all that much about the _why_ of it when the result had been so delightful. Even the fact that she was sweaty and breathless right now in the aftermath of Alexander fucking her for the second time that night seemed delightful.

He pressed a kiss to her shoulder and sighed. “Should have put that toy away,” he murmured, sounding regretful. “Thirdy will have dismembered the lure.”

Rosemary laughed and stroked her fingers down his spine. “Sorry for being so distracting.”

He lifted his head from her shoulder in order to look at her. “Distracting is… perhaps not the right word.” He bent in and pressed a clinging kiss to her mouth. “Enthralling, perhaps.” Another kiss, one her mouth formed to without thought and tried to follow when he pulled away. “Enticing.” A third kiss, this one with a little flick of his tongue up beneath her upper lip. “Delicious.”

 _That_ one made her blush, something the other endearments hadn’t done. His lips still tasted a little bit like her. “Awful man.”

He smirked. “I seem to like it when you call me that.”

“Oh, lord.” She shoved his shoulder lightly. “You should probably go take care of that condom.”

He dropped another kiss to her mouth before going off to take care of his business, leaving Rosemary alone with her thoughts.

They weren’t exactly _reassuring_ thoughts. Never mind that she hadn’t come into this looking for an emotional attachment; it was too early to be feeling one to start with. She’d only just met Alexander a week—a week!—ago, so there was no call for her to be feeling all fluttery around him just because he was unexpectedly good at giving head.

But she _was_ feeling fluttery. And that could very easily become a problem. She’d decided to hook up with this man who was only barely more than a stranger—and then only by dint of being a friend of a friend— _because_ she thought that would make it easier to not get emotionally involved. If she started _feeling_ things around him just because he liked to complement her extravagantly and looked at her like he wanted to devour her, and hell, just because he was nice to his cat, she really didn’t know how she would cope.

Alexander appeared in the door of the bedroom again, wearing his boxers once more, his trousers draped over his arm. From what she remembered of the last half an hour, both garments come off somewhere in the living room, while she’d been briefly pressed up against a wall as he kissed her breathless. And oh, god, she was blushing.

“Did Thirdy destroy his toy?” she asked to distract herself from her current flustered state.

Alexander laughed softly and made a face. “Ripped to pieces. I do not think he ate any of the feathers, though.”

“Well, that’s good.” She nibbled her lower lip for a moment, strangely anxious. “I’ll buy you a new one.”

He crossed to the bed and flopped bonelessly down at her side, rolling towards her so that he could press a lazy kiss to her cheek. “Mm. Is not your fault he destroyed it.”

“Isn’t it?”

He appeared to consider this for a moment. “Well, perhaps, but it is not as if I cannot afford to replace it myself.” He pressed a kiss to her jaw next, and another to her neck. “You should go use bathroom. I found spare toothbrush from last dentist’s appointment.”

“Oh, god, thank you.” She pushed herself upright, as much to head bathroom-wards as it was to escape his distracting and altogether too-appealing kisses. “My morning breath is foul enough even when I _do_ brush my teeth at night.”

“Mm.” Alexander slid his hand down her spine, his fingertips lingering on the upper curve of her ass. And then he sighed and swung himself upright, clearing the way for her to get off the bed without clambering off the end of it or over him.

By the time she made it back to the bedroom, dressed in the oversized t-shirt once more and that water bottle he had offered her in hand, Alexander was curled up under his covers, his back to the wall that his bed was pushed up against. Thirdy had curled into a little ball—a mirror of his owner’s position—against the back of Alexander’s neck, half on his pillow.

Alexander blinked sleepily at her and smiled, lifting the covers so that she could slide into the bed next to him, and then lifted himself up onto his elbow—a move that got a disgruntled chirp from the cat—and reached over her, moving the water bottle to one side so that he could fumble his lamp off. When he settled back down, his arm stayed on top of her, wrapped firmly around her middle. “Is this all right?” he murmured, nuzzling her shoulder.

It was too close, too comfortable, too… too much. But she couldn’t figure out how to say all of that in a way that made any sense outside of her head, so instead she murmured “Of course,” back at him and lifted one of her hands from her side, placing it over his.

A few minutes later, and she was out like a light, her ears full of the sound of Alexander’s gentle snores and the cat cleaning himself.

It was still dark outside when Rosemary woke up. She felt a moment of disorientation where she wasn’t quite sure where she was, but the warmth of Alexander, curled up at her side and snoring against her shoulder, sorted that out quickly enough. At some point during the night, his hand had migrated to her thigh, and she figured out what had woken her—his fingers, stroking the skin of her inner thigh in a gentle but extremely insistent fashion. Quite a feat for a man who still seemed to be out cold. But his erection was poking against her hip, so she supposed she could blame the unconscious stroking on that.

She turned her head towards his and interrupted his snore with a gentle, questioning kiss. He started responding in kind a moment later, kissing her back, again and again, interrupted briefly by what she took for a moment of disorientation of his own as he woke the rest of the way up.

This time had none of the desperation of their earlier fucks. This time was a slow, careful thing, his hands smoothing over her body in that reverent way he had to him sometimes when touching her, his lips insistent but his kisses tender. And _fuck_ , it was hot. By the time Alexander finally put on a condom and sheathed himself in her, she was two strokes and a bit of pressure to her clit away from orgasming. Her breath shuddered out of her in little gasps as he gave her what she needed, and then he saw to his own needs, fucking her in slow, languorous strokes that felt just as much like a caress as his hands on her body had.

It was only as they were laying there together afterwards, both of them panting for breath and his body limp and satisfied against hers, that she realized the cat was still on Alexander’s pillow. She might not have spotted him if his fur hadn’t been lit by in the early dawn light peeking through the blinds, but that orange was unmistakable.

She couldn’t help it. She laughed. Hysterically. She felt things slip between them, and Alexander scrambled to regain control over the condom before it leaked everywhere, and she still could not stop laughing.

“Is something—?”

“The cat!” she managed to get out, before lapsing back into breathless, wheezy giggles.

Alexander looked at his pillow. Thirdy looked back. “Pervert,” he said, making a face at the cat.

Thirdy’s only reaction to this accusation was to yawn and tuck his head back down under one of his front paws, which did not help Rosemary’s current case of the hysterics at all. “Sorry,” she wheezed. “I just…”

Alexander let out a chuckle. “It is fine. I forgot he was there.”

“So did I.” She took a deep breath. “Woo. I think I needed that laugh.”

Alexander leaned over to his bedside table and scooped up the tissue box. “Rough week at work?” he asked, his attention on his own body as he got rid of the condom and cleaned himself up a bit.

“Um.” Rosemary chewed on her lower lip as she considered how to respond. She knew it was a meaningless overture, the sort of rote thing you said when making conversation with someone you were only acquainted with, but it felt more personal than that. “Not any more than usual, I guess.” Other than she’d spent the entire week thinking about Alexander. And about being railed senseless by him. In her office. Where it _definitely_ wasn’t appropriate to be thinking about that sort of thing.

“Mm.” Alexander had clearly read her reticence as a sign she wasn’t interested in conversation; he slid his leg over hers and stumbled his way off the bed, heading towards the bathroom without another word.

Rosemary sighed and stared after him until she heard the bathroom door close. She found herself staring at the ceiling next, but that wasn’t a good enough distraction from her thoughts, so she pulled the blanket over herself and rolled onto her side before reaching for the cat, running a hand across his soft fur and, when Thirdy didn’t protest, scooping him up and pulling him towards her. Thirdy let out a sleepy little grumble, but as she cuddled him and stroked his side, he bumped his head against her chin and started purring, his eyes still closed and his paws kneading sideways at the air.

“You live an enviably simple life, Thirdy,” she said to the cat, putting on an overly formal voice for no particular reason other than it seemed like the way to address a cat.

He wiggled and rolled onto his back, stretching his paws out and exposing his stomach.

“Is this a trap?” she asked him.

Thirdy only looked at her expectantly, his front paws tucked to his chest, looking about as adorable as it was possible for a cat to look.

“You have to tell me if it’s a trap. Otherwise this is entrapment.”

The cat snagged her hovering hand with one of his paws and pulled it to his chest. And then, very daintily, he began grooming her fingertips and rubbing his cheek along them.

Rosemary let out a muffled squeak and heard an answering laugh, half-hidden in a cough, from the doorway behind her. Alexander appeared in her peripheral vision, leaning over Rosemary’s body to pet Thirdy’s stomach.

“I do not know that he has ever shown anyone else his stomach,” Alexander said. “It is usually a trap for other people.”

“I’m honored,” Rosemary said, carefully extracting her hand before Thirdy changed his mind about not attacking her. “Truly and deeply.”

“You should be.” A quick glance up revealed a teasing little smile on Alexander’s face as he looked directly back at her. Rosemary found she had to duck her head to one side and look away after a moment, strangely… embarrassed wasn’t the right word. Perhaps self-conscious?

Whatever she was, it was making her blush. Alexander made a small noise in the back of his throat and leaned his weight against her side, bending over her to nibble at her earlobe, following it with a warm kiss to where her pulse beat hot and fast in her throat. “I thought it took a little bit of time for you to be ready again,” she teased, trying to distract herself from the butterflies that had started up in her stomach again.

“Mm.” He had a hand down under the blankets now, feeling around until he found her nipple. “Thought I might run more tests on theoretical basis for, ah, giving good head.”

Rosemary could already tell she’d be sore enough to have trouble walking for the next couple of days; a few extra orgasms couldn’t possibly make it worse, and his experiments had had _excellent_ results on that front. But she decided to continue teasing him anyway. “I don’t know. It seemed as if you reached pretty conclusive results last time.”

“Mm,” he murmured, his lips still hot on her throat, “but what is use of one successful experiment without repetition?”

She let out a little gasp as he flicked his fingertips across her nipple. “I recall at least _two_ successful experiments. Possibly more. Depends on if you’re counting by the session or by the orgasm.”

“But that was last night. I will need to run experiments at all hours of the day to be certain.” As he spoke, he did something to her nipple that had her biting down on her tongue to keep from whimpering, and _fuck_ , she was done teasing.

“Get rid of the cat first,” she said. “Don’t want to corrupt him, after all.”

Alexander blinked, seeming to wake up from a daze. “Right. Yes. Thirdy? Zavtrak!” The cat was on his feet and out the door of the bedroom before Rosemary had a chance to react. Alexander dropped a kiss to her cheek and murmured “Will go feed him breakfast and be right back. Stay _right_ here.”

Rosemary laughed at the intent tone in Alexander’s voice. “Promise. Go feed your cat, and I’ll resist making jokes about eating pussy.”

“Augh! Awful.” But Alexander was smiling, and he pressed another kiss to her cheek before following Thirdy out of the room.

And Rosemary was left alone with her _very_ busy thoughts once more.


	7. Chapter 7

Alexander had to admit it: he was a coward. Rather than examine the distressingly warm and tender feeling that had filled his chest when he had returned to his bedroom to find Rosemary cuddling Thirdy, he had turned to sex to distract himself. To distract them both, really. Rosemary had seemed a bit awkward about being discovered doting on his cat, and he had wanted to get rid of that awkwardness and go back to the care-free way they’d been spending their time together so far.

And really, they had only known one another for a week, and they had decided that this would only be about sex. What sort of feelings could they be other than lust? Lust wasn’t worth examining beyond the urge to act on it.

So he fed the cat, washed his hands clean of cat fur and drool, and made his way back to the bedroom. Rosemary had piled the pillows up against his headboard and was sprawled against them, completely naked, looking extremely comfortable and extremely… sexy wasn’t a strong enough word, he thought. He wanted to throw himself at her feet and beg. For what, he wasn’t quite sure, but he could probably find something to beg for once he got there.

She smirked. “Got to say, you’re doing _wonders_ for my self-esteem. I’m sure it’s just because you’ve been deprived for so long, but I’m going to pretend that look is all about me.”

“It _is_ all about you,” he growled, closing the bedroom door behind him and crossing to sit on the bed at her feet. He knelt there and placed his hands on her ankles, circling the side of them with his thumbs.

Rosemary shivered.

He slid his fingers further up her calves, and she bent her knees, pulling them towards her chest and then parting her legs as he continued, stroking his fingers down her inner thighs. He traced the fingers of one hand between the lips of her cunt, finding her slick and hot beneath his touch.

“You are so…” he started, but he could not find the right words. So instead, he lowered himself onto his stomach and followed the touch of his fingers with the touch of his tongue, rough and eager. She was salt and musk and glory, and just a hint of the latex of the condoms they’d used.

And for all that she seemed to be enjoying herself, her legs were trembling against his cheeks. He lifted his head and frowned up at her. “Are you all right?”

“Just fine!” she declared, looking guilty.

“Because if you are too worn out for this...”

She looked as if she was about to protest for a moment. And then she sighed. “Is it so obvious?”

“You are shaking.” Alexander pressed a kiss to her inner thigh and sat the rest of the way up, wincing as his back gave a warning twinge. “And perhaps I am approaching my limits as well,” he admitted, somewhat reluctantly. He crawled up the bed and collapsed at Rosemary’s side.

“It’s not that I don’t want to, it’s just—“

He dismissed her concerns with a nonchalant wave. “I understand. Suspect I am one wrong move away from throwing my back out.” He sighed. “Am no longer as young as I once was.” And he spent too much time hunched over a microscope at work, which certainly did nothing good at all for his physical state.

“I know that feeling.” She stretched, slowly and carefully, like a cat. “I miss my twenties. I felt untouchable then.”

Alexander frowned. He was six months away from his thirtieth birthday. “Er. If you do not mind me asking... how old _are_ you?”

“Thirty-six,” she said, and then laughed, no doubt at the expression on Alexander’s face. “Isabel didn’t warn you, did she.”

“No, she did not,” he said, sounding distant even to his own ears. “I, ah...”

“You went to college with her, yeah?” When he nodded, she sighed. “Well, if this is going to make things weird for you, let me know.”

“It is not the fact that you are older than me. It is simply that I did not know you were,” he admitted. “I have never done anything like… well, like this. Am used to knowing more about…”

“The people you have sex with?” she offered up with a cheeky grin.

“The people I date,” he corrected. “This is new to me.”

She chewed her lower lip for a moment, almost nervously, and then smiled. “Nothing a round of twenty questions can’t fix. What do you want to know about me?”

“Ah.” Now that she had offered, of course, Alexander found himself completely incapable of thinking of any questions to ask her. “Any family?”

“I think you’re supposed to ask yes/no questions,” she teased him. “And… no, not really. My mom died last year, and I don’t have any siblings. I guess I have a cousin or two out there, but if I do I’ve never met them.”

“I am sorry,” Alexander said on instinct.

“About my mother dying?” Rosemary rolled her eyes. “Don’t be. We weren’t exactly… close. I never was with either of my parents. I always got the feeling that they liked the _idea_ of having a child more than they liked actually having one, which made for a rocky relationship.” She sighed. “Annnnd…. That was probably oversharing.”

“I did ask.”

“Well, how about I ask you the same thing, and you can make me awkward by oversharing about your overly _intimate_ family details.”

Alexander let out a startled bark of laughter. “I have two older sisters and both of my parents are still alive, but everyone lives in Russia, so I see them when I’ve saved up enough vacation time.”

“How’d you end up in the States?”

“Thought it would be easier to get into the graduate program I wanted if I went to college here. And then...” he shrugged. “I stayed. It is... well.” He considered how to put it. “I had realized that I was bisexual by then, and it was much, ah, simpler to explore that side of myself here than in the part of Russia I grew up in.”

“Understandable.” Rosemary smiled lopsidedly at him. “I took a couple of jobs in conservative areas after I’d just graduated and was desperate, and it was... well. I’ve never been anything but unapologetically queer, and it’s hard to stuff that back inside when you’re not used to hiding it.”

“I still am not.”

“You shouldn’t have to hide it,” she said with a stubborn little tilt to her chin. “No one ever should.”

Those words left him feeling disoriented. He cast about for a change of topic, something less intensely personal. “Any hobbies?”

“I like to read, when I’ve got the time. I took a welding class last fall, but I haven’t had the time or money to rent studio space and play around with things since then, so what I learned didn’t really stick.” She sighed. “But in all honesty, I’m a bit of a workaholic. Thus, well…” she gestured expressively at Alexander. “This.”

 _This_ no doubt referring to the fact that she was having sex with him, a man she barely knew. “Do you prefer things this way?”

“I don’t know.” She studied his face closely for a moment, a little frown forming a crease between her eyebrows. “I think… well, all right, let me put it like this. I’ve fucked people I thought were friends before, and then when I didn’t want to fuck them again I found out that they were only in it to get in my pants, and weren’t really friends at all. So in some ways it’s easier not really knowing you well enough to know whether or not we’d be friends, because it means that if we break this off I won’t be losing a friend, too.”

“I see.” They were back to topics too intensely personal for comfort. And oh, what a set-down, her intentions made perfectly clear again in a way he could not deny. Not that he _was_ friends with her, but he supposed that some small part of him had been hoping that they could be. “Better put me to use again,” he said, leaning in close to kiss her for lack of a better distraction. “I might get ideas otherwise,” he added, pressing a second kiss to her laughing lips.

“Awful,” she said, shoving him playfully. “If you throw your back out today, what will I do later this week when I’m desperate for a fuck?”

“Vibrator?” he suggested, pressing a kiss to her shoulder.

“Awful, awful man.” But she seized his face in her hands and pulled him back in to kiss her on the lips again.

There was a knock on his apartment door.

“Should you go get that?” Rosemary murmured.

“Probably,” he responded, stealing another kiss before shoving himself upright. It was probably just a package delivery—he had a few books coming—but he rolled off the bed and located his boxers and trousers on his way to answer the door.

It was Isabel, carrying a cup holder with two to-go cups and a box that probably contained donuts. He stared at her in confusion for a moment, and then remembered. Of course. It was Saturday. She was there to watch the latest episode of Legends of Tomorrow with him. Like she was every Saturday morning.

“Isabel! Ah. Hello.”

“Hey! Uh. Is this a bad time?”

“What?”

“Only you’re not wearing a shirt.” Isabel glanced down at his chest and raised her eyebrows, her lips compressing into a line that made it obvious she was trying not to laugh.

“Ah. Well...” might as well be honest with her. Maybe if he was, she would go away, and he could get back to what he’d been doing before she had shown up. “You see, Rosemary—“

“Was just about to head out,” the woman herself said from somewhere behind him. Alexander turned to find her completely dressed and picking her coat up off the couch, shaking it out briskly and putting it on as Thirdy nagged at her calves, begging for some scrap of her affection. Alexander wondered at her ability to get dressed so quickly as he moved to scoop up his cat so that she could escape without taking the creature with her. She bestowed a single pat on Thirdy’s head and no farewell at all to Alexander beyond a brief little smile as she headed towards the door.

Isabel’s eyebrows shot back up her forehead, this time in surprise. But she stepped back from the open doorway in order to let Rosemary bustle past and made no comment other than to exchange hellos with the other woman.

“It looked like she was wearing yesterday’s outfit under that coat,” Isabel said once she was in Alexander’s apartment, the door shut safely behind her. “You _dog._ ”

Alexander did have to admit that he felt like one, the way he was panting after Rosemary. If Isabel had not shown up, he would probably have Rosemary underneath him by now as he did his very best to drive them both completely insensible, weak back or no. “Why should it matter if she spent the night?” he asked, releasing Thirdy before heading towards his bedroom to find a shirt.

“I guess I just didn’t expect you to move that fast,” Isabel called after him. When he returned to the living room, she had settled her bounty of coffee and donuts on his coffee table. “I mean, I knew you two had hooked up,” she added, gesturing at him with a hand full of Boston creme, “But you’re standoffish enough that I didn’t think…” She trailed off, frowning at him.

“Didn’t think what?” he asked, bristling somewhat at her unvoiced implication as he sat down at her side.

“Nothing,” she said, shaking her head. “Just... you’re moving faster than I expected you two to, is all.”

“Yes, you said that.” Alexander, on the other hand, hadn’t gone into this with any expectations at all, other than the expectation that he would be turned down in seconds flat by Isabel’s far-too-attractive friend. And he had been off-balance ever since that moment, expecting Rosemary to put an end to this whole thing as quickly as it had started, and not certain at all how he would feel about it when she inevitably did.

Something about his tone of voice must have alerted Isabel; she gave him a concerned look. “What’s up? _Did_ she move too fast for you?”

“Yes.” He sighed. “No. I don’t know. I am enjoying myself, but...”

Isabel’s expression turned sympathetic. “Got blown off your feet by Hurricane Rosemary along the way?”

“Something like that.” He sat up from the habitual slouch that he’d fallen into, intending to gather up his coffee and maybe investigate the donuts, but Thirdy chose that moment to reappear, leaping over the arm of the couch and clambering inexorably into Alexander’s lap, returning immediately to it when Alexander tried to remove him. He sighed and slumped back against the back cushions of the couch, petting his _clearly_ attention-starved cat as Thirdy turned in a little circle and settled down.

“Here.” Isabel finished her donut and picked up the box, offering it to him. “Sugar will help.”

“Thank you.” He inspected the offerings and grabbed one of the plain cake donuts, not trusting himself to manage anything with glaze or frosting with Thirdy so needy.

“So... did you want to talk about it?” Isabel asked.

“Will it not make you uncomfortable?”

“Oh, it will.” She grimaced. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not here to talk if you need it.”

“It’s just...” he sighed. “This is the first time I have done something like this. Having sex with someone I was not friends with beforehand. So I think... I think my brain is looking for that.” He took a contemplative bite of donut.

“You don’t like her?” Isabel asked, looking concerned.

“Oh, I do. Or at least, I think I do. But we have gotten together three times, and we have had perhaps... ten minutes of conversation over the past week about things that are not about sex?” He sighed. “So... I think that perhaps my brain is searching for something more and is finding reasons to like her where there are none, when she has said that she does not wish this to be about more than the sex.”

Isabel sighed as well. “Sorry about that. I thought the two of you would at least go on a couple of dates before hopping in bed together.”

“It is not your fault.” Alexander polished off his donut and reached for the coffee Isabel had brought him, ignoring Thirdy’s disgruntled mutter and readjustment as the cat got squished between Alexander’s torso and legs. “She was clear about it from the beginning. I agreed to it. I just… just wish Thirdy didn’t like her so much.”

Isabel let out a crack of laughter. “So she was telling the truth?”

Alexander made a face. “You saw him earlier. He is like that all the time. Begging her to pet him, like I don’t pay any attention to him at all.” He sighed. “Keep wishing I could do the same.”

Isabel shuddered. “Okay, we’ve just crept over the line into too much information territory. Shall we watch a show or something?”

Alexander agreed quietly and took a sip of his coffee as Isabel turned his TV on. It wouldn’t do to dwell on it, after all… and a silly show about time-travelling miscreants would do an excellent job of distracting him.

And if he was very lucky, he would stay distracted.


End file.
